An inside look at the CAD, CAM and CAE industry - by Roopinder Tara

Media

June 25, 2014

Quite often, a company will pay for a journalist to attend an event and cover all the costs. This will have most journalists jumping for joy. It's one of the perks of being part of the press. There's not a lot of journalists who work for publications with travel and expense budgets and few journalists can see far off exotic locales on their own. So if we can get airfare, hotels (usually nice downtown business class hotels) and meals (sometimes the best restaurants in town) and be the envy of friends and family, even hang around at the bar and get the tab picked up, we jump at the opportunity. In return, the companies get some coverage. It's an unwritten rule...until recently.

I was notified that I would not be welcome at a CAD company's annual big bash. I had been to their last big bash and written nothing about it. Nothing. Not a damn word. I had not met "expectations."

Finally, it was in writing.

I don't question their decision. There was a pretty good chance that I might have gone again and still not found anything worthy of note. Or I might have taken the opportunity to get to know the company and products better, using that information as "background" (journalist-speak for involvement not directly resulting in articles), or I will take a trip to further business relationships. Sometimes, I just can't find a unique angle that I think will interest anyone.

I suppose I could faithfully transcribe the keynote speeches, rehash the material presented to each of us, painstakingly and carefully prepared by a diligent PR team who has worked hard to provide press releases, product information, even graphics and captions, bios of the execs and case histories. Some of this material is ready to use. I could do a cut and paste with little thought of my own. But there are journalists who are better at this than I, and I can always refer to their work.

As there could be many who strive to see the world at the expense of companies who seek only immediate favorable coverage, I thought I'd take the opportunity to write some of these unwritten rules. There's not many and it's very simple: basically you behave like a good guest, don't write anything bad or critical while you are there, then send a warm thank-you note (in the form of a complimentary article about the company and its products disguised as a report from the field to your readers).

Rules for Free Trips

Tweet like mad. It doesn't matter if your followers can't keep up with your hundred tweets during an event and may likely unfollow you. What matters is that companies have PR staffers who count the tweets. Your host will know who the top tweeters are and you need to let them know you are industriously and frantically covering their show.

Pay particular attention to the wit and wisdom dispensed by the top executives. Companies trot out their top executives at these events, so shouldn't they be well photographed and quoted? They have scripted, rehearsed, honed their points, made their entire company on message and practiced their jokes. How would you feel if you did all that and paid guests (journalists) wrote nothing? If you have been given an interview, don't think for a minute that the CAD exec has been reading your stuff and is delighted to finally meet you. In his mind, he has deigned to give you some of his valuable time and that had better turn into favorable prose.

Follow-up with a longer article -- or series of articles after the event, and if the event is expensive enough (ie, you have been flown across oceans), then you had better keep up the coverage all year long so when they plan their next event, you will be on the list. Also, be receptive to press releases, company events, etc. There should be nothing, no matter how trivial, that you should ignore from such a generous host.

Following these simple rules will guarantee that you will be invited to future events.

June 11, 2014

SAN DIEGO, CA - HP's large format printer division is based in Barcelona, but their print heads are made in San Diego, the software may be written in Oregon and their PR firm is in Atlanta -- an arrangement that favors frequent flyer miles for most involved -- and jet lag.

The HP PageWide large format printer (on right) promise higher speed and color than LED printer currently in use at repro shops. It's due to hit the streets towards end of 2015. Price has not been announced.

A couple of large format printers hulked on the sides of the stage as the western hemisphere press filed into the ballroom of the Sheraton Marina Hotel. But as the music bulit up, the curtains parted and a spotlight tracked the star of the show as it came forward by itself to center stage. Enter the page wide large format printer!

May be not as dramatic an entrance as Gene Simmons at a Kiss concert, but in our world, that's as good as it gets. We applauded.

Plans for Invasion

It was the first large format (40") printer with PageWide print head. Whereas a normal print head goes back and forth across the page, a PageWide printhead is actually a collection of stackable printheads tha covers the whole width of the sheet. All colors are dispensed at once. It's way faster than back and forth, multiple pass method and also. Print registration should be spot-on (pun intended) since the paper doesn't have much chance to slip on the rollers.

A series of printheads can be stacked to achieve a 40"wide printhead

While the other printers have notable improvements (the T3500, which is not even based on PageWide technology, can output a D-size print in 21 seconds!), HP has big plans for this battleship-class printer. It intends to displace the current (electrostatic) technologies in repro houses. HP sees this as a $1.3B market. Same speed or faster ...plus color! How could they not love it, HP asks rhetorically.

Perhaps because they'll be bound to HP for expensive ink?

Users in Ink Prison?

HP insists that their total cost of ownership is still low, even with their proprietary inks. It's a widely held belief that printer companies lose money on their hardware but profit immensely from ink cartridges. It's certainly true for consumer printers. I have been shocked at paying $40 for probably an ounce of ink. I can see the cartridges of the large format printers from the second row. Each looks like it holds half a gallon.

Why Now?

The page wide printer will not be avaialble until late 2015, more that a year away. HP says the technology is all there, but they want to do enough testing to ensure that it meets their reliability standards.They are announcing their plans early to send a message to the repro shops, that something better will be coming down down the road eventually, so don't enter into any long term relationships.

Potential Uses

While engineering and AEC prints are E-size maximum, HP is counting on the creation of signs and banners, which is getting increasing popular.

Compass is printed in France, available in
several languages (including English), and features subjects as far reaching as
CEO Bernard Charles' vision, which extends far beyond the mere design of planes,
trains and automobiles. It's debut issue is hardly the nuts-and-bolts user
interest stories of Contact
magazine (Dassault's old in-house magazine) but meant to appeal to a "higher"
level of reader: those further up the corporate food chain. In its debut issue
are departments such as Society, Education, Art...it even has book club
recommendations.

If anything, Compass wants to put a focus on the "3DEXPERIENCE," the concept which Dassault has been mentioning in just about every corporate communiqué for
a several months now.

It's a beautiful magazine. Glossy. Big. It will look great in corporate
office lobbies, which I am sure is its intention. It looks like money. Trade
press publishers, most trying just to keep the lights on, will be jealous.
Vanity press, they'll say. Does anyone read that stuff?

COMPASS debut issues opens to Bernard Charles smiling face. Turn the page and
Monica Menghini, EVP of Marcom, greets us from her own page. Almost lost in the
ensuing fine print is chief editor Michael Marshall.

Michael, who handled customer stories for Dassault, tells me that anyone and
everyone who wants it can subscribe, you don't have to be a Dassault customer.
Michael tells me of stories he is going to be working on. New technologies.
Interesting people. Now I'm jealous.

The magazine features advertising, though in the debut issue, the ads were
gratis for Dassult partners, including NVIDIA, Lenovo, Wacom, others.

Is it any wonder that big companies put out its own magazine? Google does it.
So does Bentley, ANSYS. MSC. They are bright, colorful magazines, on thick
paper. It leaves companies free to create their own marketing vehicles, promote
the customers they are proud of, brag of new products and initiatives. They can
break free of page limits imposed by trade press and not be subjected to the
editors who change the stories -- if they run them at all.

September 29, 2011

Is this news? I call them conversions. As news editor of TenLinks, I had included such items as news in our newsletter. To me, a company switching CAD systems was important. It signified that a company had found an advantage of one CAD system over another. The hope was that the company had made a serious comparison of the two systems and found their present one lacking. It must have been a gut wrenching decision, as so much is invested in a CAD system: the training, legacy data, the procedures, not to mention the dreaded conversion that is about to ensue. From such anguish, a lesson learned. Maybe for those with similar products, or similar companies.

And as such, a conversion would be worthwhile, interesting, maybe useful... in other words news.

Not so fast, oh smug news editor, says one CAD insider. He works in one leading CAD company, which NEVER boasts of conversions. I tell him a rival has converted a dozen seat from his company's product to those of his rival. Ho hum, he says. We get this all the time. It's routine for us to take fifty or sixty seats at a time from our competitors. We don't brag,

It actually made sense. A market leader, even one who is not taking a high road, would only have achieved their position and be able to maintain it by constantly converting users of other CAD systems. They would tire of such claims. They would be common place, expected. An editor would soon tire of receiving such claims.

For all the conversions that are going on, it just might be possible that most of it is going in the direction favorable to the market leaders. And if they are not publicizing it, such conversions go unreported. Whereas, stragglers, also-rans, start-ups and upstarts would report joyously on each and every seat wrested from any one, as few and infrequent as they might be. Then don't I risk spreading the unsubstantiated and skewed belief that market leaders are losing market share to their competition, though it may be far from the truth?

September 13, 2011

Social media has transformed the world, from finding high school friends on Facebook to overthrowing governments with Twitter. So why is it that our industry seems to have failed to capitalize on it? After observing one great success and a few dismal failures, I offer these rules for those seeking to use social media:

1. Don’t dismiss it.

By now, everyone is aware of blogs, tweets and Facebook. But if you think it’s something that your wife does, or how the kids waste their time, that it has no place in your business, a fad that you can safely ignore… then prepare for the world to pass you by.

2. Don’t question it.

How many times have I heard “I don’t get Twitter…or Facebook..or blogging…” Guess what? It doesn’t matter if you get it. The fact is everyone is using it. It’s a fact of life. An entire generation has grown up texting, googling, living their lives on Facebook pages. It's like the air they breathe. No questions.

Maybe you think LinkedIn is better, the adult version of Facebook. That seems to be a reasonable excuse. But even LinkedIn establishes a generation gap. Kids use Facebook. Old fogeys use LinkedIn. Kinda like skis and snowboards. Remember one thing: who are your future customers?

3. Don’t misuse it.

Let’s say you are convinced of the importance of social medial. You see all the kids are all in the pool. So you jump in. Except you can’t swim. Your toupee comes off. You’re flailing.

Watching some companies trying to use social media makes me squirm. For one big CAD company, social media meant mandating employees get a Twitter account. But they had nothing to say. Twitter use lapsed into lavish praise of each others' mediocre accomplishments and of their products. The cheerleading reached a crescendo during a national user meeting with endless retweets of every lame joke the CEO made. Oh, by the way, ease up on the 'great white paper' or salesy webinar. That stuff is on your site, right. We’ll get it if we need it. Thanks.

More recently, another big CAD company abruptly declared mid-conference that all tweeting and photos were to stop… shortly after trying to impress us how media savvy, hip and online they were.

SolidWorks was the last CAD company to become successful without using social media only because back in 1995, it didn’t exist. But SolidWorks did a masterful job of using the existing media, notably print magazines and trade shows. The web seems to have left both print media and trade shows in shambles, however. Since then, no company has been able to master the the media of the day -- online media. No company has risen to the top, either. Coincidence?

Despite all initial and continued success as a market leader, SolidWorks itself finds itself with many of the same challenges as the others: trying to figure out where to go from here. Its once mighty legion of bloggers was the envy of the industry. Users and resellers by day, they pecked away on their keyboards til late at night creating volumes of dialog, tutorials, tips and tricks, etc. But now, many blogs grow cobwebs, having lost momentum and fervor. Some may write again as their annual user event approaches. One notable blogger has all but defected, often writing positively about rival products.

Autodesk – the undisputed business leader of our industry, is arguably also the leader in social media. It’s leading evangelist, Lynn Allen (aka, the Queen of CAD) has artfully combined live appearances and print articles with tweets and blog posts. Shaan Hurley, first on the blogging CAD scene with Between the Lines has continued to produce online since 2003. Then there is Scott Sheppard, a one-man PR staff who keeps all up to date on cool new products from Autodesk Labs. Kean Walmsley, Heidi Hewitt, Kate Morrical, and more… who despite working full time jobs at Autodesk are also prolific bloggers, roiling their areas of cyberspace with useful and interesting content.

Want to be successful in social media? Study Autodesk. As they are all over the Web. You can't miss them.

And spare the excuses, chief among them would be “we don’t have Autodesk resources.” Guess what? Social media participation is NOT expensive. It used to take a princely ransom to introduce and promote a product. SolidWorks spent millions. That was when guys in suits with expense accounts ruled the media, selling print ads and show booths. The new crowd works a lot cheaper. It’s just that someone has to figure out how it can all work out.

April 15, 2010

Let's say you are a beleaguered CAD CEO and are trying desperately to move your company ahead in these tough times. Marketing is a good place to start. Let us examine the prevailing marketing guidelines that seem to be emerging.

DO:

Spend your advertising budget on Google ads

Befriend an already popular blogger

DON'T:

Develop and invest in a marketing campaign.

Let's look into this a bit further.

Google ads

Very cheap, and you only pay when someone clicks. So what if Google can't tell the
difference between Computer Artery Disease and Computer, Computer Aided Dispatch
and Computer Aided Design? You can get rid of your high price
marketing VP and most of the marketing department. It takes little skill to create Google ads and manage the
campaigns -- except you do have to get your message into 3 tiny little lines. You can get tons of empirical data... immediately.

Befriend a Blogger

A popular blogger is like gold. A blogger gets popular because he/she is
probably a subject expert, writes intelligently and often. Best to fly
them to headquarters -- economy class is fine. You can pitch to them all
day but leave plenty of time for fun stuff, take in the sights of you town --
make sure you go to a good restaurant and let's not forget the power of alcohol.
Altogether, this creates a warm fuzzy feeling -- and it can be had for a couple
of thousand dollars, tops. Any blogger worth his salt will document his
newfound knowledge of the company and its products. After all, a blog must be
fed.

You can do this with press, too, but with less success. You could get old and die waiting for an article.

Marketing Campaign

In contrast to above, a full fledged marketing campaign takes planning and
execution, often requiring careful consideration at the highest level. They take
time to run and worse of all, can run into tens of thousands of dollars. Results
are not as easy to gauge.. in the short term.

February 12, 2010

Deelip Menezes has taken the CAD industry by storm. He has scored some major
coups. At this year's SolidWorks World, he sat down product manager
Shaun Murphy and got him to admit that SolidWorks' backward incompatibility and inability to read/write CATIA files were "business issues." In other words, Dassault had basically conspired to deny its own customers two capabilities they were desperate for. A few days later, he scores an interview with Carl Bass, CEO
of Autodesk. I was surprised he wasn't at PTC's press/analyst event this week -- but that didn't stop the event organizers from talking reverently about him.

It's just not right. The most sought after, one of the most prolific and most
insightful journalists I've ever met is not a journalist at all. He lives on the
opposite side of the world (Goa, India) and writes code during the day. He has
never taken a journalism course. Though his English is just fine, it is probably
his second language. He may not have a travel budget. He was not launched
from an established print magazine, never paid by a publisher and has never had
the luxury of waking up to spend the whole day writing articles. How is it that
the plain Deelip.com blog (it looks like an off-the-rack template) is on the short list of must-reads for CAD insiders and
Deelip himself is widely regarded by the CAD industry and those who cover it as a
"thought leader."

I needed to find what made this man tick? I spent a day with Deelip, between
his trip to SolidWorks World in southern California and his trip to Hawaii (he was there to see a
business partner). I picked him up in the tony Marina
district, where he was staying overnight courtesy of an Autodesk employee. We
shot across the Golden Gate Bridge, through Marin County, had lunch in
Yountville, sipped wine in Napa and had dinner at my house.

I suggested that perhaps CAD journalism was in the doldrums due to the
financial problems of several publishers, leaving veteran journalists scrounging
for their next meal. Deelip wasn't accepting excuses. "What about me?" he said,
rhetorically. I had to concede. All Deelip did was write...part time...and keep
writing. Why couldn't anybody do that? He tells me he often writes after
his kids go to sleep.

Though the posts are numerous (really, does this guy ever sleep?), it wasn't the
quantity. Deelip is writing gutsy stuff, often with extraordinary insight. Unfettered from advertising and
consulting revenue, Deelip is unafraid of scaring off CAD vendors. Try to
bullshit him and you will go down. This morning, he skewered Autodesk. He had asked why Inventor LT was only available in "select countries." First to
squirm was Kevin Schneider, the person responsible for Inventor Fusion. Kevin chose to hand off to Autodesk's PR staff, who
came back days later with a response from Peter Vinh, Inventor LT Product
Manager. Peter carefully stated how Autodesk was rolling it out to various
geographies, but never mentioned India and avoided giving any specific information, like dates. Deelip
called it "neatly crafted crap."

December 02, 2009

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University), Dec 2, 2009 - Cadalyst magazine was back
in print form with a December issue. Issues were being given away for free at AU
but the plan is to sell future issues for $10. The magazine will be published
quarterly.

Nancy Johnson, editor in chief, with the December 2009 issue of Cadalyst.

Cadalyst used to be free for most subscribers and published monthly. It has been a tumultuous period for Cadalyst staff. Cadalyst was reduced to an issue every 2 months last year as a cost saving attempt, then abandoned by Questex
Media earlier this year. Led by Seth Nichols, who formed Longitude Media, its current publisher,
and Nancy Johnson, editor in chief, it has survived since then as a online
publication.

Response from AU show floor has been positive, according to Nancy. Several
people have said "I'll buy it," she tells me.

The magazine is available for $9.99 plus $2.25 for shipping -- if you are in
the US. Foreign readers had better have really missed their magazine -- they
have to pay a hefty $71 for shipping. "The price only helps pay for our print
costs," says Seth.

September 25, 2009

It what seems to be an attempt at Do It Yourself, we
were treated all last week to frequent reports from the Siemens PLM analyst event from a member of the corporate communications staff. If you follow
Siemens' social media expert Dora Smith on Twitter, you got a play by play of
the event: who was speaking and their subject. You may even have seen Dora's
interview with Tony Affuso, CEO of Siemens PLM, and found out that Tony golf
game was an "embarrassment."

Though press and bloggers were not invited, analysts
were. That was no big surprise about the press being ignored. After all,
SolidWorks had already placed press second to bloggers during the v2010
introduction.

Though some grumbling was heard, most of the old school
press are resigned to their fate. The days of being flown around the country,
being wined and dined by CAD royalty and listened to as if you had a monopoly on
wisdom because it said "editor" on your name badge -- that's SO over. Nowadays,
you have to produce. SolidWorks and Autodesk have discovered that they get much
more bang for their buck with bloggers. New to the game, impassioned about the
product, dazzled by the attention of those on high who make the software they
are lucky to be playing with, a software vendor can expect serious amounts of
positive ink to flow out of the heady experience of a free trip to headquarters,
an invitation to a conference expenses paid, being the first on the block with
the latest release, etc. -- all the stuff we old editors and reporters
take for granted.

Siemens PLM has little in the way of a blogger
community. But they have Dora, a one-woman force. She may well have melted her
smart phone keys with her Tweets. Still, a bit of variety would have been nice.
Analysts are important, especially for public companies, but I heard not a peep
from them from the show. I'm sure they are saving the good stuff for their
paying clients or for one of their thousand dollar reports.

If more CAD vendors insist on the DIY approach, I'm
going to miss the spice that varied reporting types can add. I already miss
Ralph's pithy comments as he updates his blog during the keynotes. I can imagine
Matt telling Dan Staples on what it would take to make Solid Edge take off like
a rocket, Martyn commenting on the interoperability (or lack of) between Solid
Edge and UG, or Deelip cornering a product manager on Synchronous Technology trying to handle complex shapes.

September 21, 2009

Last week, I was reading a post by an industry observer. This was a person I
respect for his sharp mind and his encyclopedic knowledge. He has been in the CAD industry
forever. A true CAD insider. The subject of his post interested me -- and by
similarity, also the subscribers of TenLinks Daily. But I grew more dismayed as
I read on as this post was peppered with jabs at another blogger. So frequent and
pointed were the jabs that by the time I read to the end, I had forgotten what
the article was about. I wanted to reread it but was pressed by
a deadline. Many other articles had to be approved for insertion into the
newsletter. With so many blogs, independent sites... plus vendor sites also
publishing their material online, we are facing a deluge of material. In the
early years of TenLinks, we used it all. But these days, rather than overwhelm
our readers with a yard long daily newsletter, we have taken to eliminating
links to articles that are may be irrelevant, uninteresting, insignificant,
poorly written, hard to read... and in this case, maybe just a bit too personal.

Had I been an old school editor and these were articles I had commissioned, I
would have edited the personal stuff out. But in my new job, I don't have that
luxury. I can use it or not.

I'm not saying bloggers shouldn't write personal stuff. Heck, that is what
blogs are for, right? You can write about your breakfast, your kid's
birthday party, your feud with another blogger. Fine. It's America. We have free
speech. Get it out of your system. I write personal stuff in mine sometimes. But I have to sort out what is going to be
useful and/or interesting for my subscribers. So for their sake, I have to have standards.

Or am I being too high minded? The week before I didn't use an article that had a curse word in the title. But I only have to look at the magazines by the
supermarket checkout to be reminded that negative material sells magazines. Being shocking sells. Maybe I
should publish beach photos of CAD celebrities who have fallen off their diet,
who got really drunk at the last conference, who is getting a divorce. There's
no shortage...